Nice Work if You Can Get It
Nice Work if You Can Get It; Notes from a Musician’s Diary By Don Franks (Steele Roberts, $19.99) If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be a fly on the wall of the social functions of the rich and powerful but not be tainted by that experience, then Don Frank’s Notes are […]
James Shaw – a New Direction for the Greens?
On Saturday the Greens elected a new co-leader. The winner was James Shaw, a relative newcomer to parliament and national politics. But who is he? Before this election few had ever heard of him. James Shaw grew up in Wellington and completed an MSc in sustainability and business leadership in London in 2005. He continued […]
The Budget: State of the Nation
Bill English’s “boring budget” is full of miscommunications and misleading information, fairly typical of a right wing government that wants to hide what it really has planned. Included in this budget is the giving away of state land in Auckland, the continuation of massive changes in the public sector and of course wildly hopeful expectations […]
Budget 2015 – Normalising Poverty
Workers on welfare will get an extra $25 a week. This is the “take home message” of Budget 2015. After promising a “boring Budget”, and downplaying any expectations of help for children in poverty, Bill English has delivered a substantial increase to the money struggling families will receive. Of course, there are strings attached. The […]
Should NZ recognise Palestine?
Should New Zealand recognise Palestine as a separate state? This is what the Green Party hope to see happen. In December last year Kennedy Graham MP tried to put a motion to Parliament that “this House call upon the government to [recognise] Palestine as a sovereign State, and looks forward to the day when it is accepted as a member of the United […]
Mana College Under Attack
Government moves to put Mana College into statutory management smacks of the racism and contempt for workers and the poor that is prevalent throughout the government’s approach to public education. All working people should take an interest in these developments. Mana College, Porirua, had of last year a student composition that was 65% Māori , 18% […]
The link between capitalism and racism
We live in an age of racism. In Australia, the federal and Western Australian governments’ attempt to drive Aboriginal people in remote communities from their land is only the latest episode in the war on Indigenous people. In the United States, there is an epidemic of police slayings of predominantly Black young men. In Europe, […]
No New Zealand Troops to Iraq!
Cory Anderson gave this talk to the Auckland branch of the International Socialists. April marked 100 years since New Zealand troops landed in Turkey with the purpose of opening up yet another front in the bloodiest war that history ’till then had seen. It’s something of an irony then, that at the very same time […]
Outrage at proposed changes to Coroners Act
Press Release from New Zealander’s Against Prison Privatisation. We are outraged and concerned about the proposed changes to the Coroners Act. Currently an inquest is mandatory for deaths in official custody or care. Changing that to sole discretion of the coroner is an egregious watering down of the state’s Duty of Care and a backwards […]
On May Day – a Salute to Kristine Bartlett
Kristine Bartlett recently toured the country speaking about her work in aged care and the landmark legal victory for pay equity. As part of International Workers Day, we celebrate this working class hero’s tireless campaigning for equal pay in New Zealand. Twenty three years ago Kristine Bartlett started work in aged care on $9 an […]
